Society and Natural Resources, 14:701–709, 2001 Copyright Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis 0894-1920/2001 $12.00 1 .00 Insights and Applications Ecological Modernization and Its Critics: Assessing the Past and Looking Toward the Future DANA R. FISHER Department of Sociology/Rural Sociology University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Wisconsin, USA WILLIAM R. FREUDENBURG Department of Rural Sociology University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Wisconsin, USA The theory of ecological modernization has received growing attention over the past decade, but in the process, it has been interpreted in conicting and sometimes contradictory ways. In this article, we attempt to bring greater clarity to the discus- sion. Reviewing the works both by the theory’s best-known proponents and by its most outspoken critics, we note that difculties are created not just by the combining of theoretical predictions and policy prescriptions —a point that has already been noted in the literature —but also by the stark and highly signicant differences in expectations between ecological modernization and most prevailing theories of society –environment relationships. Perhaps in part because of these differences, disagreements have often been expressed in stark, black-and-white terms. If the problems are to be resolved, there will be a need for greater theoretical precision, developed in conjunction with empirical research that is more focused, more nely differentiated, and more rigorous. Keywords ecological modernization, environment – society relationships, global environmental change, social theory Roughly 10 years ago, Society and Natural Resources published the rst article on the theory of ecological modernization in the English language (Spaargaren and Mol 1992). Since then, the arguments of ecological modernization have received growing attention, both within the subdiscipline of environmental sociology and in broader debates over major social theories (see, e.g., Bl¨ uhdorn 2000; Buttel 2000a; 2000b; Christoff 1996; Cohen 2000; Giddens 1998; Hajer 1995; Leroy and van Tatenhove 2000; Mol 1995; 1997; 1999; 2000a; 2000b; Mol and Spaargaren 1993; 2000; Spaargaren 1997; 2000; Received 1 November 1999; accepted 13 September 2000. The authors thank the anonymous reviews for Society and Natural Resources. Address correspondence to Dana R. Fisher, Department of Sociology/Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 350 Agriculture Hall, 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706. E-mail: dsher@ssc.wisc.edu 701